Renewing Scars
by DeXMachina
Summary: Scars are memory. Images of the life one once lived. Being reborn, being fixed, doesn't change that. Her past was hers, the only thing left. She couldn't let it go. Warning: self-harm.
1. Arm: Torfan

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Mass Effect and all its characters belong to Bioware.

AN: This is just a small thing. My very first, more of a test and see than anything. Hope y'all like it.

* * *

Shepard stared at the smooth, unblemished skin of her arm.

It wasn't _right_.

She'd once had a scar there. From Torfan. A Batarian had shot at her arm as she used her omni-tool to summon her droid. She remembered digging it out, cutting into the flesh of her forearm to remove the shard of white-hot metal. The scar wouldn't have been half as bad if she had just left it alone.

At the time, it had seemed like a good idea.

_At the time, sending your entire unit to die had seemed like a good idea_ she thought. Most of Torfan was just a blur now. Screams and pain and panic. Then cold clarity, that one moment when she decided to _kill them all_. She was told later that some of the Batarians had surrendered. She hadn't noticed.

"The Butcher of Torfan"

It wasn't right, that the last solid reminder was gone. As if it had never been. As if she had never suffered through it. Erasing the pain she'd felt.

Shepard pulled out the boot knife she always carried, now. And sliced into the new skin.

_This_ way. _That_ way. Ripping. Haphazard. The blood flowed down her arm, made the hilt of the knife slippery.

Just a bit more. She stopped and looked at it. It looked almost…right.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't the same. But it was better.


	2. Back: Mindoir

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. I checked. It all belongs to Bioware.

AN: Seeing as my first attempt wasn't immediately booed of the site, I feel safe posting a continuation.

* * *

Staring at the mirror. The bathroom in her new cabin.

The last Normandy, she had slept in a small thing on the crew deck. Now she was here. First floor, above everything, the whole deck to herself.

_Alone_.

Alone was never a good thing. She realized that too late.

She was young, so happy to have a whole room that was only hers. Two sisters, a brother, and space was always short on Mindoir. But Da had built a whole new floor. A bedroom just for her.

Above everything.

And too far away, when the slavers landed. Her brother and sisters slept on the ground floor, the raiders got there first. Thick floors, thick walls, muffled the noise. She didn't know. She just slept. Her mother and father, in the room across the hall, died fighting. _And she just slept_.

The Batarians burst into her room last. Then she woke up. To fear and grabbing hands. She ran. Past the blood, the fire and screams and begging for mercy. _Got to hide, find safety, get_ _**away**_.

She had a scar from then, too. In her back, near the shoulder. She was shot running away from the settlement. The soldiers found her later, behind an outcropping of rock just outside the town, bleeding and in shock. They told her she did the right thing. That she never would have survived if she had stayed.

It didn't help the guilt. Years later, drunk, she would get the names of her family, the date of the attack tattooed just underneath the bullet scar. That didn't help the guilt either. And now it was gone, too.

But ever since then, she didn't run. She would never leave anyone behind again. Even if it cost her life. It was her atonement. One day she would give her life the way she should have all those years ago.

They'd rebuilt Mindoir. Razed the ruined buildings, put something else in their place. Buried the dead and mourned the lost. New people lived there now. It was better.

They rebuilt the Normandy. It was bigger, with better guns. An AI. New people lived here too. It was better.

They rebuilt her. She was faster. Stronger. Harder to kill. But was she better?

She walked out of the bathroom. Stared at the large bed. After Mindoir sleeping had become a chore. She _needed_ to know what was going on. Couldn't be caught unawares anymore. She turned away. Grabbed her gun and walked out to the elevator.

She's sleep somewhere else tonight.

* * *

The crew found her the next morning, sleeping in the shuttle bay. Her eyes snapped open at the sound of the first step. She flew up, knife in hand, lashing out at whatever came close. One crewman was in the med bay later, a wide gash in his leg being stitched up by Dr. Chakwas.

Shepard didn't sleep outside of her room after that.


End file.
